


Then and Now

by siximpossiblethings



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Supernatural AU: Croatoan/End'verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 03:36:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/605399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siximpossiblethings/pseuds/siximpossiblethings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel drinks a little too much and what results isn't what Dean wants to think about.</p><p>WARNING(S): alcohol abuse/alcoholism</p>
            </blockquote>





	Then and Now

It’s become a rarity for Castiel to get totally and utterly shitfaced now, but of course, he’s never been one for the norm.

The reason behind this isn’t that Cas rarely drinks because, if anything, the man drinks like a damn fish. It’s that he is actually drunk. Completely piss faced drunk. Dean had not seen him so intoxicated since he first took up the stubborn vice. Castiel had almost grown immune to booze and the effects it tried to inflict on his now human body. Had someone cut him, Chuck had once commented, he probably would have bled absinthe.

The absinthe in question had proved to be too addictive for Cas. To solve that problem, he had taken to popping pills. In what was left of Dean’s memory (his mind had been too consumed with thoughts of killing the Devil that he did not have room for much else) he didn’t recall the other man drinking heavily in a long while.

Stumbling over nothing but air, Castiel enters the small room where Dean has been left alone with his thoughts for his sole company. Cas’ clothes are smudged with dirt and his ever growing facial hair seems too thick for his face. Dean looks up for just a moment. He guesses he’s supposed to be taken aback at the man. The younger version of himself would have wanted to ask where the hell Cas had gotten his booze. Now, he’s too preoccupied to even open his mouth.

“Ya know,” Castiel begins, plopping down on a hard couch across from Dean’s chair. “The stars are bright tonigh’.” His words are rounded at the edges and flow into each other sloppily. “It’s kinda trippy,” he adds in as an after thought when Dean doesn’t respond.

“Then go out and watch ‘em or something.” Dean’s voice is sharp and largely uninterested.

Castiel considers it for a moment, but then shakes his head. “Nah,” he begins, shaking his head. “Kin’a pathetic to watch the sky without someone.” He almost laughs, scoffing at the very possibility. “No one’s watched the sky with me for a long time.” He says it as if it’s an empty plea, hoping that maybe someone will answer his call.

Dean doesn’t pick up and leaves the room.

~

Later that night, as Dean’s fast asleep, he’s woken up by the sound of manic laughter. The sound is hollow and honestly it kind of scares the shit of him. He gets up, knife if hand, and looks out his window. He sees nothing at first, just the endless sky and a bunch of dirt. But then he looks down and his eyes fall on Castiel’s form.

He’s laying in the grass a crack running across the landscape of his face. He’s laughing while he looks up at the pitch black sky and Dean has no fucking idea why. He’s gotten too old for this shit.

“Cas, what the hell are you doing?” he says, sticking his head out the window. He feels like a mother calling her children in for dinner and it kind of irks him how fitting it is. “You’re gonna freeze your ass off out there, you idiot.”

“Sheesh,” he hears Cas say. It’s too dark to actually make out the movements of his lips. “I’m just doing what you said. Which was to go out and look at ‘em.”

“At what?” Dean asks. His memory slips at the moment.

“The stars.” Castiel’s voice isn’t as slurred now, although it is still evident that he had been drinking before. “Remember how I used to do that?” His voice is suddenly soft, a pinch of sadness mixed into it. “Before all this shit went down, I mean.” Again, his voice is hopeful for an answer.

Dean realizes that all along Cas has been doing just that: wanting an answer. An answer to why he’s so damn miserable, why being human is so painful, metaphorically and physically. But mainly, Dean assumes, he wants to know why this had to happen. That tinge of bittersweet icing travelling on Castiel’s voice is exactly what Dean had been ignoring all along. Now that it’s being forced upon him, he feels trapped.

That is when Dean slams the window shut and goes back to bed. Cas falls asleep in the dirt, his eyelids covering his cobalt blue eyes. The very eyes that used to contain the stars he once intensely gazed upon.

That was then. This is now.


End file.
